Soul Ascension
|manufacturer= |modifier=Kru'desh Legion |sysmods= |length=1,893 meters |width=885 meters |height=230.8 meters |max accel= |max speed space= |max speed air= |engine= |slipspace drive= |slipspace speed= |poweroutput= |power= |shield gen= |hull= |sensor= |target= |navigation= |avionics= |countermeasures= |armament= |complement= |crew= |skeleton= |passengers= |capacity= |consumables= |othersystems= |era= |role= |commission= |firstsight= |destroyed= |retired= |lastsight= |battles= |affiliation=* **Kru'desh Legion |fleet= |taskforce=Kru'desh Raiding Force |owners= |namedcrew= |captains=*Riq 'Ellash (deceased) *Stray }} The Soul Ascension was a in service to the and later to 's splinter faction. Originally christened the it was heavily damaged during the and salvaged by shipwrights following the . Renamed the Soul Ascension, the ship was among several warships seized by Shinsu 'Refum and his warriors during their flight from . 'Refum presented the warships to Jul 'Mdama in exchange for a position in his renewed Covenant. The Soul Ascension was assigned to the Kru'desh Legion's raiding group and when the rogue Simon-G294 seized command of the legion it became the first Covenant-aligned warship to serve with a human . The Soul Ascension served as Simon's flagship until Amber-G330 usurped command of the Kru'desh Legion. When the Kru'desh was merged into the Free Domain warriors under the command of Tuka 'Refum seized the Soul Ascension and fled to the edge of the galactic frontier. Heavily modified to exceed its operational parameters, the Soul Ascension proved capable of successfully engaging even larger capital ships. The Soul Ascension's many enemies erroneously reported it destroyed multiple times over the course of its operational history, lending it a larger-than-life reputation as an indestructible ship. Operational History The Sacred Promise The warship that achieved infamy as the Soul Ascension came into being as the . Commissioned alongside a line of several hundred CCS-class battlecruisers to bolster Supreme Commander 's , the Sacred Promise was placed under the command of newly-anointed Shipmaster Uren 'Pularee. The cruiser was placed in the vanguard of a renewed offensive against the and took part in several probing attacks on suspected enemy positions. During one such sortie the Sacred Promise and the rest of its task force came under fire from a large UNSC task force. Most of the Covenant ships were destroyed in the ambush; the Sacred Promise sustained heavy damage but managed to limp back to friendly space, albeit with the loss of nearly half its assigned crew. Shipmaster 'Pularee's angry superiors relieved him of command and the Sacred Promise returned to drydock for repairs. As such it missed the chance to participate in the less than a month later. The Sacred Promise was still undergoing repairs when the sundered the Covenant and plunged its empire into civil war. A pack of Jiralhanae warriors under the command of Chieftain Pavus stormed the ship and overwhelmed its skeleton crew. Claiming the Sacred Promise as their own, the Jiralhanae joined an ad hoc raiding fleet that struck out at vulnerable Sangheili colonies across the edge of Covenant space. Despite his lack of naval experience Pavus proved a competent commander and led his pack in dozens of sorties against their Sangheili foes. Unfortunately the Covenant's defeat in its allowed the Sangheili to regroup and mount a counter-offensive against the Jiralhanae upstarts. Hunted by Sangheili warships, Sacred Promise escaped several encounters before being crippled in an engagement over . In an effort to save his pack Pavus evacuated his surviving crew and scuttled the ship on the planet's surface. The Sacred Promise's broken hulk rested on Hesduros for several years as war continued to rage across what had once been the mighty Covenant Empire. It was eventually discovered by a salvage team loyal to the Covenant warlord . The cruiser was raised from its resting place and taken to a Covenant shipyard where it underwent a full refit. Restored to full combat readiness, the ship was rechristened as the Soul Ascension. The Kru'desh Legion Given new life as the Soul Ascension, the veteran battlecruiser was placed under the command of Shipmaster Kul 'Vellun and his newly organized Kru'desh Legion. The Kru'desh was an irregular battle group consisting primarily of condemned warriors charged with carrying out high-risk missions in the Covenant's ongoing war with the UNSC and . 'Vellun was a harsh taskmaster who used the Soul Ascension as his headquarters while he sent wave after wave of Kru'desh warriors to their deaths. Before long the survivors of these suicide missions turned mutinous and 'Vellun was assassinated by one of his officers, Riq 'Ellash. 'Ellash earned 'Mdama's pardon for his treachery by proposing the Kru'desh be repurposed as an irregular raiding force to carry out missions unsuited to 'Mdama's conventional forces. Under Riq 'Ellash's command the Soul Ascension became both a dedicated warship and legion headquarters for the Kru'desh. Faced with the challenge of proving himself to both Jul 'Mdama and his own followers, 'Ellash had the ship refitted with an armament to match the standards of the old Covenant. 'Ellash reforged the battlecruiser and its legion of misfits into a deadly raiding force, seeking out and exploiting weak points in enemy supply lines. Where the Soul Ascension had once hung back as its warriors flew out to die it now took the lead to blast apart enemy defenses with daring close-range plasma blasts. Boasting only a small support force, 'Ellash trained the Ascension's crew to be independent and self-sufficient. The Kru'desh spent ever-increasing periods of time away from the main Covenant force, surviving through raids on enemy supply ships and trading with independent outposts. There was a limit to what a single battlecruiser could accomplish, but while the Kru'desh were hardly shifting the tides of war one way or another 'Ellash was content with achieving status on par with Jul 'Mdama's more conventional shipmasters. The Kru'desh had transformed themselves from a wretched penal gang into a formidable fighting force. But even more change arrived in the form of a legendary Forerunner , presented to 'Ellash by an aspiring mercenary called Ro'nin. The Forerunner intelligence interfaced with the onboard systems, drastically improving system performance while declaring herself to be a messenger of the gods. 'Ellash himself was skeptical of such unexpected providence but as the Oracle's presence inspired religious obedience in the Kru'desh rank and file while practically improving their battle capabilities he saw no reason not to embrace her as his adviser. The Oracle extended herself throughout the ship's systems and nearly doubled the battlecruiser's energy efficiency. Her cyberwarfare capabilities opened entirely new methods of raiding and troop coordination, allowing for unprecedented flexibility in how the legion adapted to battlefield conditions. But what none of the Ascension's crew realized was that the holy messenger was actually of human origin. The renegade artificial intelligence Diana had assumed the guise of an Oracle in order to infiltrate the Covenant and bend it to her own agenda. Now unwittingly in service to Diana's ambitions, the Soul Ascension would soon fight under the command of an even stranger master. The Human Shipmaster In 2557 a Covenant assault on the frontier world of Fell Justice was beaten back by a coalition of mercenaries, criminals, and rebels. Scavenging the wreckage in the aftermath of the battle, Kru'desh salvage teams discovered a lone survivor: the renegade Spartan Simon-G294, barely alive after being caught in an assault carrier's fiery demise. The "oracle" declared the discovery to be a divine omen and insisted that Shipmaster 'Ellash have Simon brought aboard the Soul Ascension. The bemused 'Ellash complied, unwittingly putting the next step of Diana's scheme into motion. Simon languished in the Ascension's brig for weeks, tortured and tormented by Diana even as she nursed him back to health. In the meantime, Ro'nin and other mercenaries Diana had dispersed throughout the legion undermined 'Ellash's authority as shipmaster and laid the groundwork for his downfall. Simon emerged from Diana's ministrations a changed man, losing himself in the ruthless persona known as "Stray." Stray and Diana secured the support of Ro'nin and other officers with the promise of increased plunder and profits. When the conspirators presented 'Ellash with his human prize, Stray lashed out and strangled the shipmaster. The mutiny spread throughout the ship and before long the Soul Ascension and the Kru'desh Legion were under Stray's command. Diana used her influence as oracle to declare Stray's ascension the will of the gods; any warriors unwilling to swear fealty to a human were quickly disposed of. Stray assumed command of the Soul Ascension and the battlecruiser became the first Covenant warship to sail under a human's command. The Soul Ascension and its outcast crew might have been swayed to Stray's command but the rest of the Covenant was not so easily convinced. After terse negotiations with Jul 'Mdama, Stray proved his commitment to the Covenant cause by taking the battlecruiser on a string of raids against UNSC targets. Stray was a vicious fighter but woefully inexperienced with military command, let alone the alien systems now at his beck and call. He relied heavily on Diana and his inner circle of officers to guide him through the Ascension's first sorties. But his diligent studies of the ship's capabilities as well as his own innate cunning soon set him on the path of true leadership. The Kru'desh thrived under Stray's command, and the Soul Ascension most of all. Stray understood the ship to be his most potent weapon and harnessed its firepower for both ship-to-ship engagements and to support infantry assaults. His knowledge of human naval doctrine fed into new training initiatives and technological developments. The Soul Ascension soon boasted a number of integrated UNSC battle systems stripped from ruined ships or purchased on the black market. The ship's refurbished battle suites enhanced Diana's cyberwarfare potential and improved the close-range accuracy of the weapon systems, which Stray often used for precise strikes in the midst of boarding actions or ground assaults. Though the Ascension fought its battles in Jul 'Mdama's name, Stray harnessed the ship and its legion to advance his own agenda and wreak terrible vengeance upon his enemies. As the Kru'desh grew in notoriety, the Soul Ascension became a much sought after target by local UNSC commanders. Rather than scale back the legion's raiding activities Stray instead improvised a common smuggling ploy by having his warrior cobble together decoys from the skeleton hulls of destroyed or scuttled battlecruisers. These "balloons" mimicked the Soul Ascension's identification signature to fool enemy patrols into thinking they were the ship itself. In some ambitious cases Stray even had smaller support ships fire plasma torpedoes from within the "shadow" of the false battlecruisers. In this way the Kru'desh diverted attention from their real targets and masked the true scope of their movements. The decoy skeletons rarely survived deployment and as false victory reports circulated through enemy battle networks the Soul Ascension was reported destroyed more times than any other warship in the Covenant fleet. Rising Power War continued to rage unchecked across the frontier, allowing Stray and the Kru'desh ample opportunities to expand their scope of operations. The Soul Ascension remained key to their battle plans even as they acquired more ships and set up covert bases of operation across the galactic rim. Cooperation with mercenary groups like the Banished allowed the Kru'desh to further augment the battlecruiser with superior armor and weapons. Tutored by veteran shipmasters such as Shinsu 'Refum, Stray proved a capable commander both on the bridge and in the field. Even as the war effort continued to turn against Jul 'Mdama the Soul Ascension continued to wreak havoc on enemy supply lines, always craftily eluding the task forces sent to hunt it down. Specifications Category:Covenant ships Category:Battlecruisers